


Of Clay, Crude and Cold

by beaubete



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: (that includes myth 'verse canon), 30 Days OTP Challenge, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Lots of Angst, M/M, one hundred percent less fluffy than you think it's going to be, or maybe only eighty-five percent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-28 16:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Thor/Loki fics for the 30-Day OTP challenge.  Each chapter is a stand-alone drabble, though some may reference others before them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Holding Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1 - Holding Hands

His fingers are going numb, just a little bit, the manacles’ weight pressing blood into his fingertips.  And he refuses to lift purpling hands to let them drain; if he loses his hands, he thinks stubbornly, it will all be Thor’s fault.  And it would upset him, a thought that warms his stomach even as his fingertips turn icy and begin to pulse hot with each beat of his heart.  

Until a huge hand wraps around his, tugging them both above his heart again by the chain that limits his movement and holds him together.  Thor briskly rubs the color back out of Loki’s pale skin, the thick, dry heat of his palms chasing away the tingling numbness.  ”Do not fear, brother. I will have these off of you soon,” Thor assures him.  Loki’s lip curls.

“Take my hands like a common thief?  How barbaric,” Loki sneers, a flush stealing over his cheeks; it’s weak and they both know it.  Thor doesn’t say anything, lets his mouth tuck around the tiny smile that Loki’s acerbic tongue has always been able to command, and Loki finds his manacles less impossibly heavy, lifted easily by Thor’s helping hand as they wait for Odin to call him in to face judgement.  

It doesn’t help; the cold, tingling feeling spreads up his fingers and past his wrist, shooting along his nervous system to bunch high in his chest; Loki is not afraid.  Thor watches him carefully, and he pinches bloodless lips together firmly.  ”I am not afraid.”

“You are cold,” Thor says softly, taking in the thin, trembling line of Loki’s shoulders.

“I am not afraid,” Loki says again.  Thor takes his hands between his own, rubbing over his knuckles in broad, reassuring strokes.

“Your hands are cold.”

“I’m a frost giant,” Loki reminds him.  The words hang in the air, empty.  Thor shifts.

“You are my brother,” Thor tries again.  Loki’s sympathy for him cracks like an egg, hate dripping thick like viscera over their joined hands.  He moves to pull away.  Thor stops him, a brute always.  ”No.  You are—”

“I am Loki,” Loki reminds him sharply.

“Yes,” Thor sighs.  He looks tired, remnants of their battle on Midgard still etched across his brow, and regret steals over Loki, clambering onto his shoulders for a ride. Loki looks away, turning his hand in Thor’s.  He can’t see the wondering, joyful hope creeping across Thor’s face; he know’s it’s there.

“Well?” he demands instead.  ”Are my hands no longer cold?”

Thor’s touch smiles as he traces the edge of the manacle, and despite himself, Loki does feel that numb tingling recede.


	2. Cuddling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of Thor/Loki fics for the 30-Day OTP challenge. Each chapter is a stand-alone drabble, though some may reference others before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 - Cuddling

Affection isn’t rare in Asgard.  Thor has never wanted for hugs or pats on the head as a child, or for the fond embraces of a close friend, or even the clasp of a lover’s arm as he grew older.  There is no end to the lines of people willing to show Thor how important he is through a touch, a smile, a hand at his shoulder or a kiss to his cheek.

So he doesn’t understand how he can want so much for the one person who never does to touch him.  He doesn’t understand why he follows his brother’s form with his eyes, watches his fingers where they steeple and flex and point as he talks, tastes sweet mead and swallows compulsively when a pale pink tongue darts out to wet thin lips.  Thor aches, remembers childhood spent lounging in furs as Loki read to him, and feels the phantom touch of little sharp elbows in his ribs as they’d curled as close as possible, Thor to see the pictures and Loki to find the words.

He can smell the sweet, musty heat of the white furs still, taste the char in the air from the braziers that lit the room against the night’s dark chill, feel the sticky cling of sweaty wool between them though they’d always been so unwilling to part.  Loki would read until, soothed by his brother’s mellifluous voice, Thor would droop into his lap; he’d insisted Thor snored.  The next night, Loki always remembered exactly where he’d been when Thor fell asleep.

They’d finished every story between them but one.  Three drops of tallow, spattered like blood; Thor couldn’t even remember what they’d quarreled over.  The story paused, indefinitely—was the prince a monster? the princess a fool?  was the romance doomed, would the prince marry his troll bride and spend the rest of time pining for his true love?—and Loki laughed in his face the few times, heavy in his cups, Thor had pleaded for resolution.  Three drops of tallow.

And Thor doesn’t understand until later, much later and worlds away, doesn’t understand the flash in Loki’s eyes whenever he had asked and Loki had mocked him, called him so desperate for a scrap of his favor that he’d wash his small clothes for a taste of it.  Three drops of tallow.  And Thor curls his fingers around the edge of the book, this Blue Book of Fairytales, this story for mortal children, and wonders how many other times his brother spake true, wrapped in layers of misunderstanding.


	3. Gaming/Watching a Movie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of Thor/Loki fics for the 30-Day OTP challenge. Each chapter is a stand-alone drabble, though some may reference others before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3 - Gaming/Watching a Movie

Some creature, hot and spiked and squirming, had crawled up from his Loki’s belly and made its nest inside his throat.  He had no care for women’s tears, worried not about the growls and threats that came from where Thor’s friends crowded the Lady Sif, cooing soothingly and snarling dire things in turn.  It had been fantastically funny at the time, and would probably have remained so had she been half the honorable warrior she claimed to be.

Thor’s eyes were dark, sharp and cool when he gazed at him.  Halfway between Loki and his friends before Odin’s throne, it was clear where he’d prefer to be; his weight rested away from Loki, and Loki felt the loss keenly, a part of him threatening to tear itself free.  Though if Loki were honest, Thor had gone long ago, this membrane thin and careworn and only there to show their father some semblance of affection for each other.  It would bleed when it finally tore, Loki knew.

Sif’s shorn hair shone dark in the gleam of Asgard’s throne room.  That had been unexpected; she’d gone from bright and golden like Thor to dark as Loki.  It was only fair, he reasoned—he’d done the same when they’d drawn his brother away from him, cut something more vital than hair and left him to wither without his brother’s light.  His stomach clenched to see disappointment on Thor’s face as he touched her dark hair.  Dark like Loki’s, dark like Loki, all Loki’s fault.

A sharp-edged smile carved across Loki’s face.  ”It was a game.  Only a child’s jest.”

Thor’s snarl of disgust was like a slap across the face.  ”Harming a maiden is not a game!” one of Thor’s friends, the pretty one, was declaring officiously.  ”Caber toss is a game!  Sporting, shows of athleticism!  Not sneaking into a maiden’s room and shearing her like a sheep!”

And it was at the tip of his tongue to swear she was no maiden, to spill secrets like fat golden coins across the floor, to tell of Lady Sif’s betrayal, the child even now she bore hidden behind her leathers.  To speak of her betrayal and see the protective light fade in Thor’s eyes.  But secrets as currency—to spend so heavily at once, in anger and jealousy and hurt feelings; he bowed his head, smiling.  ”This, too, is a game for Loki,” he said.  ”You simply have not learned my rules.”


	4. On a Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of Thor/Loki fics for the 30-Day OTP challenge. Each chapter is a stand-alone drabble, though some may reference others before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 - On a Date

It’s not shyness that stops his words in his mouth, but it feels like it is.  Thor has never been able to find the words he is looking for easily; sometimes it feels as though he must search for them, hunt and quest them, pry them out like rare and prized jewels when they are right.  His words are more often tin.

And yet.  Yet somehow he has managed to pull his reluctant brother from his books, bring him away from the friends he has made in Thor’s long absence, tricky, sneaking men and women whose sliding smiles Thor has seen slithering across Loki’s face more and more frequently.  He has somehow, through his tin words and his unpolished wit, somehow managed to bring Loki out into the sunshine.  He counts it his dearest victory yet.

Loki is pale, shielding quicksilver eyes—never the same color twice, no matter how many times Thor looks, even when that feeling like shyness wraps gentle fingers around his throat and squeezes—from the bright sun as he looks up at Thor.  He is guarded, edgy in a way that feels like a warhamer’s strike to Thor’s solar plexus.  He smiles back, but he cannot help but hold something back.  His smile shifts, amorphous, buries that shy feeling beneath a genial glow of contentment.  ”I am glad you would join me today, Loki,” he says, tipping his face into the sun’s light.

“To what purpose have you asked me?” Loki asks dryly.  His dark brow knits in the shadow of his hand.

“Can I not seek to spend time with my brother without some secret purpose?” Thor asks in return.  ”Sit.  Relax with me; the sun is kind today and soon Idunn’s apples will be ripe.  Can you smell them?”  Thor can.  The scent is pretty, juicy, fair, brushing through the air and twining its way through Loki’s dark hair before tangling and lifting Thor’s own.  

“You might be simple enough,” Loki admits, a smile battling against the edges of his mouth in fits and starts.  He bites his lip, leaning back against the tree behind them with easy grace that is still serpentine enough to surprise his brother.  Thor wonders when Loki has shifted, melted into this long, fierce creature capable of such subtlety; he wonders if all the years of Loki telegraphing each movement, thought, and action weren’t the true play.

“Then stay with me, my brother,” Thor says, shifting until he can lay his head in Loki’s lap.  The surprise on Loki’s face is worth it.  His eyes are green and wide, open in a way Thor is only realizing he has missed.  They narrow, pull in a bit, as Loki’s elegant brow curls.

“I see.  You are seeking a pillow.”  His tone is playful.

“Oh, yes,” Thor acknowledges.  ”It is comfort for me and practice for you, for when you will serve me after my coronation.”  His eyes close as he grins, surrounded by his brother.  All is well with the world.

“Next month,” Loki says.  His fingertips dig into Thor’s scalp before spiraling out into his hair.  Thor hums in contentment.


	5. Kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of Thor/Loki fics for the 30-Day OTP challenge. Each chapter is a stand-alone drabble, though some may reference others before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5 - Kissing

His lips are numb and sparking electric, glowing bright enough that he’s sure anyone who sees him can tell.  His tongue touches the corner of his mouth; he tastes ozone.  Every cell of him is a battery overcharged, power and friction and desire compressed until he can barely keep himself from flying to pieces.  A breathy sound escapes, and then another, and then another, until he’s leaned against the wall of his chamber, arms wrapped around his own middle, wracked with feathered spasms like joy.  His mouth is open; he strains to be silent.  

 

It was a wonderful accident, sweet-sharper than any dwarf-honed blade.  The kiss slid between his ribs, sticking true, and Loki curled around it, folding it deep inside.  It would stay, and he would heal around it, flesh and sinews and clotted blood weaving that electric water smell in until he was unable to remove it from his body.  The brush of Thor’s hair against his cheeks.  The drag and pull of weather-worn lips against his own.  Thor has broken his nose before, and the uneven mountain of it now forms Loki’s horizon.  

He is ecstatic.  That night at the feast, he folds his happiness into a square and tucks it in his pocket, for once unbothered by the way Thor passes his chair to sit at the lower tables with his friends.  Loki pets his secret, takes it out often, unwilling to show it but unable to keep his eyes from lingering what feels like moments and ages.  The five of them are still crowing laughter when he invites himself to their table after Father retires.  Thor reaches over to ruffle his hair—and with the stench coming from them and the stained cloth of the table, it would seem that he has managed to charm another of the serving girls into bringing them stronger drinks than the watered wine Mother insists on for Loki—his diadem slips, and their eyes meet; Loki can nearly hear the crackle of the hot blue spark between them.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, aiming for cool and landing somewhere afield instead.  One of them—not Thor, and he finds he cares less about the answer the moment the man opens his mouth—as large as a mountain and twice as craggy—and half as old, Loki thinks uncharitably—breaks into a grin.

“My Lord Prince,” he says, and Loki doesn’t miss the way the others roll their eyes. Not Thor, who is watching with the sober concentration of a complete drunk, but the others make jest of the title as if it were anything less than appropriate.  ”We speak on matters of the heart tonight.  What are your thoughts?”

“As if he has any thoughts on the matter, Volstagg!” says the one who seems to be attempting a weedy beard, hair trickling beneath his nose in what could only generously be called a moustache.  ”He is a child yet!  Barely off his mother’s breast and you ask him to assess the others he sees.  Do we ask you about the puddings you see when you are fresh from roast lamb?”

“I wish you would!” the mountain man laughs.  Loki rolls his eyes.

“I know plenty of love,” he denies hotly, which earns him a derisive snort from the crowd.  ”At least I can find my cock!”

The air is still and silent.  The girl who sits with them—Loki thinks her name is Sif?—stares at him reproachfully, but the quiet shatters with drunken laughter.  ”Go to bed, Loki,” Thor manages, his face thick and red and foreign with sweat and alcohol and coarse, mocking laughter.  ”You are too young for talk of wenching.”

“As if you are much older!” Loki snaps back, wounded.

“I have had a kiss or two,” Thor leans on the table, glancing carelessly about the group assembled.  ”And much more, besides.  What can be said for you?”

And though Loki had been aware—kissing men, a man, a prince, one’s brother; it wasn’t done, wasn’t talked about, wasn’t ever—he’s surprised where heartbreak manifests; not in his chest or head but in his left elbow, sharp and dull like a broken bone on a winter morning.  He smiles weakly, murmurs something about the pox that amuses them long enough for him to slip away, but in his room where only hours before he had laughed at the absurdity of love, he takes out his happy secret and stares at the stains.


	6. Wearing Each Other's Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of Thor/Loki fics for the 30-Day OTP challenge. Each chapter is a stand-alone drabble, though some may reference others before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5 - Wearing Each Other's Clothes  
> [Note: this drabble takes place after Thor, when Thor believes Loki is dead]

He touches the helmet reverently.  It’s graceful, sinuous, as Loki always was, its lines elegantly aggressive.  It looks wrong.  He lifts it impulsively, glances furtively around the room as if he weren’t the only one here in the vault deep beneath Asgard.  He’d like to see the man who tells him he can’t touch the helm, anyway—it belongs to Loki and Loki, an extension of Thor in a way he’s always known but never felt so acutely until now, belongs to Thor—he has a bit of aggression to let out.  

The gold gleams under the dim light.  The room isn’t dark, not now that the Allfather has been reminded that there are things people want, things they’d be willing to hurt for.  Things Loki should never have thought he needed to steal, Thor thinks, because they were—are—were his birthright.  Because Thor would gladly hand over anything, anything at all, for just one more chance to see that wry smile, to see the wrinkles crease around his brother’s eyes at something he has said.  To see even that dear face as it had been on the Bifrost, a horrifying rictus of rage, and all of it Thor’s fault.  He’d never known Loki to be capable of such hatred, never imagined it turned on him, Loki pointing his anger and his fists and his weapons on Thor.

It would be better to see that hate, writ bare and large across his brother’s face like a poem in a language Thor has never heard before, than the sadness he remembers.  The desperate loneliness, the ache of realizing that he’d been hollowed long ago and funneled into Loki’s pockets like a child’s precious things.  The realization that he knew his brother, despite the differences that had opened this chasm between them, and the understanding, the precognition of Loki’s doom before Loki knew what Loki was going to do.  He thinks on those bright eyes, so full of water that in the end he’d been unable to keep it in, and a moan of helplessness builds inside, pressing down his tongue and threatening to crack his jaw.

No one understands.  They have feasted Loki, and that ought to be enough.  Would have been enough, but that what is Thor without Loki?  How does he continue when his brother does not?  They have never felt the connection that once surged between them, he is sure, never opened their mouths to receive breath and felt their heart beating in another chest as the air passes out of another’s lungs.  He has no idea how to function now.

And if he’s honest with himself, he and Loki haven’t been as close as they should have been.  The weight of Thor’s desire, the way he has hidden from it in the bottom of the tankard and beneath the laces of a lady’s gown, it has all conspired to drive a wedge between them that Thor had desperately wanted.  Until the moment he realized he didn’t, as Loki’s eyes, wide with hurt and narrowing quickly with numbness, as his brother had watched him from the other end of their father’s staff.

As if knowing his sins makes this pain less.  As if acknowledging that it is Thor’s own fault that Loki is anywhere—everywhere, nowhere—but their mother’s garden, sleeping again idyllic in the shade of the apple trees immortal, young…; as if the barbed tip of sorrow’s sword retreats at all to know how Thor’s own hand had forced Loki to let go.  Instead, he relishes it, treasures the pain.  Soon it will be all that is left; the Allfather has been patient, kind even, merciful in letting Thor hold the helm here protected.  They have delayed the boat as long as they can, reasonably, and where he is now, Loki will need the touch of burnished golden armor.  Odin swears Loki is not within the halls of his house; Thor imagines his fair brother facing the beasts of Hel without armor and cannot bring himself to selfishly keep it from him, for all the comfort that it brings.

So they will burn a boat for Loki tomorrow.  In the hall, there is feasting and merry, the Warriors 3 and other warriors beside drinking.  A pint for every Jotunn Loki killed, he has heard, and his lips twist wryly.  Each count will be off by one, he’s sure.  But they will send the Liesmith the things he needs to contend with the afterlife: armor and weapons and mead; but for today, this helm is here.  Thor lifts it tentatively—it won’t fit with the neck guard on, so he removes it gently—and places it on his own head.  It is surprisingly heavy, another weight to carry with him to the underworld.


	7. Cosplaying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of Thor/Loki fics for the 30-Day OTP challenge. Each chapter is a stand-alone drabble, though some may reference others before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 7 - Cosplaying

Loki touches the tip of his tongue to his upper lip; he’s concentrating.  One more brush of his hands against the seam and it knits itself together, just the way his mother has shown him how to do it.  Up until now, it has been a secret skill, but he is nearly ready to show it off.  It has taken him months to find just the right cast offs, unfashionable enough to be unwearable anymore but distinctive enough to be easy to identify.  Long nights tucking and pinning and weaving spells—to undo, to bind, to create—and it is finally perfect.  He presents it to Thor the day before the ball and Thor’s grin threatens to split his face.

It is only when he’s dressed, standing before the mirror to look at all the ways the image doesn’t match his intention, that he begins to wonder if this wasn’t a terrible idea.  It is elaborate, much more elaborate a prank than he’s used to, a playful way to rile their parents without causing any serious harm.  He’s worked hard at it, looked forward to his mother’s gently admonishing smile and his father’s amused laugh, but now he knows it’s stupid.  It’s silly, it’s childish, it’s a horrible idea.  He turns as his chamber door opens a crack and Thor peeks in.  His mouth opens, but Thor’s does too.

“Loki?”  Thor sounds strange.  In his own costume, Thor strikes an imposing figure, and beside him Loki feels more awkward, his own frame still narrow and skinny and immature.  He crosses his arms over his thin chest and frowns.

“I haven’t done the shapeshifting yet!” Loki snaps, voice sharp.  Thor looks masculine, huge and strong in Odin’s old tunic, carefully reworked to make the most of a chest and shoulders that seem wider ear day.  Frigga’s gown hangs from Loki’s shoulders in stark contrast, and without the curves necessary to fill it, it hangs like a bag.  ”It’ll be better when I’m done.”

Thor looks a bit thunderstruck, but he recovers with a smirk that makes Loki’s stomach tingle.  ”Nay, I feel I have been blessed with a brother who has secretly been a sister all along!” Thor says, and the laughter in his voice makes Loki grins despite himself.  

“I’ll show you ‘secretly been a sister all along’!” Loki retorts, distracted from wit by the nervous creep of the dress down his arms.  He pushes them up.

“It’s a good look for you, brother,” Thor says, pulling him in by his shoulders to press his forehead to Loki’s.  ”This will be your greatest triumph yet, Loki.  I believe it.”  His breath is hot against Loki’s face and he smiles weakly, pulling away.  In the mirror, the dress begins to lift and fill, and before long he is generously curved, golden curls tumbling artfully over the ample breasts.  His eyes meet Thor’s, and he is taken by the frown between his brows.

“What is it?” he asks.  ”This is exact; there is no visible difference between this body and Mother’s.”

“It…is unusual, your head on Mother’s body.  No mind.  Come, to the ball,” Thor says, offering his arm.  Loki laughs lightly, bell tones in an imitation of their mother.

“Of course, husband,” he says.  Thor’s hand covers his on his arm, and Loki’s stomach flutters again.  In the mirror, they are perfect, only the thinnest hint of a spell of suggestion around them, though Loki can still see his own face through the glamour.  Thor smiles in a way their father never does and presses an affectionate kiss to his brow, and Loki already considers this his most successful mischief ever.  


	8. Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of Thor/Loki fics for the 30-Day OTP challenge. Each chapter is a stand-alone drabble, though some may reference others before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 8 - Shopping

He has never in his life seen a hammer as fine as the one offered now.  Her star-head gleams; she sings in his blood and the need that pulses in his veins is nearly sexual.  She calls to him, and his fingers are around her handle almost before he realizes he is reaching.  She is a part of his arm he has never known was missing.

Before the throne, Loki stands white and stiff beside the dwarf, lips pressed thin.  There is something strange, something suspicious about the dwarf’s wide, magnanimous smile; the more thrilled Thor’s family looks at the gifts, the deeper his cracked grin grows until even the Allfather must concede that the gifts are the most wondrous he has ever seen, the most perfect and fitting.  

And Thor is the one forced to hold Loki still, arms pinned behind his back like a flightless bird.  The needle is sharp—duller, he reminds himself when Loki flinches in his arms and tries to duck his head into the hollow between Thor’s neck and shoulder, than the blade that would have taken his head off completely had the dwarf had his own way—and its way is heralded by a fat bead of blood and followed with thick, waxed cord of flax.  Loki’s mouth is a massacre, smeared red with gore; the stitches are clumsy and horrifying.  

It’s the humiliation the dwarf wants; Loki sits miserable and silenced, publicly punished while everyone gawps.  People mock him—not in front of the Allfather, of course, but after; instead of breaking their faces, Thor ends up in Loki’s room. The look on Loki’s face when he turns, eyes shadowed and mouth crossed with thick black lines—Thor can feel the thin seal he’s pressed hard against his welling anger creak with strain.

“Loki,” he says.  Loki says nothing; his lips flex behind the cords, almost a rueful smile.  Thor raises a hand despite himself, touching them, and Loki winces.  ”Do they hurt?”  He could kick himself after he says it.  Loki shakes his head, faltering.  Still lying.  ”How do I—?” Thor asks, and Loki hands him the small blade unquestioningly.

He bleeds, messy, over his lips and the cords and Thor’s fingers as Thor saws through the thick stitches.  After, they sit silent, side by side.  Loki’s face is frightful, smeared red-brown in fierce streaks, but his eyes are shy.  Mjolnir sits before them; Thor can’t bear to have her farther than his knee.  ”Do you like it?” Loki asks shyly, fresh bubbles of blood cracking through the scabs as he speaks from where he’s leaned against Thor’s arm.

“She is perfect,” Thor says, wrapping an arm around Loki’s shoulders.


End file.
